Daily News Digest May 22, 2024
Images of the Day:
Carlos Latuff: The ICC’s chief prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, stating they are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in #Gaza since at least October 8, 2023.
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”
The Rise Capitalism was Under the Banner of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! Now Ther Their Less Liberty, More Inequality, and Less Fraternity of Humanity! Every Day, From Global Warming to Global War There is a New Example of Capitalism in Imperialist Decay!
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capitalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 5 Decades Ago and Did Nothing!: Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel! For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel! Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone! Globaly, With the Current Gaza War, The Right of Assembly is Under Attack! Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Still Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!
The Majority of the World, Despite the Media Monopoly’s Lies, are Opposed to the Palestinian Genocide and Global Warming — The 1% Minority Funds Them! At, this Time in History, Capitalism is Exposing the Fact That it is Opposed to Majority Rule/Democracy!
Always Remember: That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing, the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. — The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!
Democracy?: As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%, Only the 1% Voted For Austerity! The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1%, Who Profit From Austerity!! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.! Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
Quotes of the Day:
When Biden told the World he was a Zionist, as a Spokesman for US Imperialist, in the present context, it means that he and the 1% were in favor of Palestinian genocide!
Biden’s Speech Re: College Divestment Demonstrations was a Justification for Legal and Extra-Legal Violence Against the Student Demonstrators!.:
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the Gaza solidarity encampment was violently attacked on May 1 by pro-Israel counter-protesters armed with fireworks, tear gas and other weapons. Reportedly, police initially stood by while the attack happened. LA Times higher education reporter Teresa Watanabe reported on X: “Pro-Israel counterprotestors started tearing down @UCLA encampment barriers and screamed ‘Second nakba!’ referring to the mass displacement & dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.” Police prevented emergency services from coming onto campus to tend to the injured. Local journalist Jack Ross reported on X that “folks are taking their own people to hospitals because they say @UCLA PD won’t let EMS in”. Ross quoted encampment activists saying the camp “has treated 100+ people so far for medical injuries including tear gas pepper spray head injuries from projectiles fireworks burns shock…”. — United States: Pro-Palestine Campus Movement Spreads Amid Police Crackdown and Expulsion Threats
… Biden and Israel Makdisi asserted that US President Joe Biden, who attracted most of the Arab and Muslim votes in the 2020 elections, is more pro-Israel than even conservative, right-wing former President Ronald Reagan. “It’s astonishing to see how cruel he has been towards Palestinians, how deaf towards Americans who have sympathized with Palestinians, and how callous to Palestinians who have family members in Gaza, or Americans who just want peace. He is totally out of touch with his electoral base, with young people,” Makdisi said. Against this backdrop, there might well be consequences for Biden when it comes to his re-election bid, he warned. — Zionism is an Extension of Western imperialism in the Holy Land: Historian Paradox of European antisemitism encouraged an aspect of colonial Zionism, says Ussama Makdisi of University of California Berkeley
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Kshama Sawant and Kailyn Nicholson / On Strike!Chris Hedges Exclusive Interview About Tthe War on Gaza & Strategy For The Movement
United States:
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford ford To Pay! Both Parties Support U.S. Capitalism’s Wars! (The Only War the Democrats Opposed was the Civil War!)
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both. — Louis D. Brandeis Quotes
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. MLK, Beyond Vietnam
‘Finally, a Glimmer of Hope’: UK Court Rules Assange Can Appeal Extradition “The High Court’s decision is a rare piece of positive news for Julian Assange and all defenders of press freedom,” one Amnesty expert said. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may appeal an extradition order to the U.S., the U.K. High Court ruled on Monday. The 52-year-old Assange faces 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse due to WikiLeaks’ publication of classified U.S. documents nearly 15 years ago. He has spent the last five years fighting extradition in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison. “The High Court’s decision is a rare piece of positive news for Julian Assange and all defenders of press freedom,” Amnesty International legal adviser Simon Crowther said in response to the decision. “The High Court has rightly concluded that—if extradited to the USA, Assange will be at risk of serious abuse, including prolonged solitary confinement, which would violate the prohibition on torture or other ill-treatment.”
War Crimes Are War Crimes’: Biden Rebuked for Decrying ICC Bid to Arrest Israeli Leaders “Biden will feel he must attack the ICC because it directly implicates his own decision-making to repeatedly defend atrocities and their authors,” said one critic Human rights defenders around the world on Monday accused U.S. President Joe Biden of double standards and worse after he condemned a decision by the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders for alleged crimes committed during the October 7 attacks and subsequent obliteration of Gaza. Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the court has formally applied for arrest warrants targeting two Israeli and three Palestinian officials. Khan is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”
U.S. Funded Plestinian Genocide:
Israel’s War on Gaza: US Slams ICC Prosecutor as 18 Killed in North Gaza
- International Criminal Court chief prosecutor says he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders.
- US President Biden says the ICC prosecutor’s request is “outrageous”, reiterating his support for Israel, and US lawmakers have threatened to move against the court.
- Meanwhile, Israeli army strikes on Jabalia and Beit Lahia in north Gaza have killed 18 Palestinians in recent hours.
- More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said, as Israel intensified its attacks across the enclave. Doctors Without Borders reports that the besieged al-Awda Hospital close to Jabalia refugee camp has completely run out of drinking water.
- At least 35,562 people have been killed and 79,652 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s attack is 1,139, with dozens still held captive.
From Strikes to Encampments, Faculty Join Campus Movement for a Free Palestine Academic workers are stepping up to support students in the face of crackdowns by university administrations. As Israel’s latest assault on Gaza entered its seventh month in April, students in the U.S. assembled Gaza solidarity encampments at countless universities from coast to coast. And now, after university officials gave police the green light to arrest more than 2,900 students at the encampments, faculty and academic workers across the country are stepping up to support them, and to continue pushing for their demands. “They cannot suppress our voices, they cannot suppress our movement, they cannot suppress our anger and our pain, and our desire to be public-facing in showing that this administration has blood on its hands,” Suneil Sanzgiri, a part-time professor at The New School in New York City, told Truthout. This paragraph was left out of the original essay: The new tariffs specifically target ‘green goods’, most notably EVs, but tariffs on lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals and solar cells will also be substantially increased. The measures are set to take effect this year (with the exception of graphite, where Chinese dominance is most stark, so tariffs begin in 2026).
Environment:
Fund Climate! — Not Genocide! One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%! After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!
Capitalism’s Wars for Oil: When Bodies Start Stacking Up From Climate Change-Related Disasters, Will These Monsters be Held to Account?
Tariffs — Biden Blocks Green Products Tariffs, Technology nd Industrial Policy The US government announced a new series of protectionist measures on Chinese goods imported into the US. It included a quadrupling of the tariff rate to 100% on Chinese electric vehicle (EV) imports, doubling the levy on solar cells and more than tripling the fee on Chinese lithium-ion EV batteries. These tariffs are equivalent to an annual $18bn of Chinese goods on top of the previous $300bn slapped down under Trump. The new tariffs specifically target ‘green goods’, most notably EVs, but tariffs on lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals and solar cells will also be substantially increased. The measures are set to take effect this year (with the exception of graphite, where Chinese dominance is most stark, so tariffs begin in 2026).
Don’t Eat the Fish: The Astounding Failure of Our Regulatory Agencies What happens when state and federal agencies refuse to adequately regulate industries and activities that produce pollution and release it into the environment? Well, as reported by the Daily Montanan, a recent study by the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has found the Clark Fork, Bitterroot and Blackfoot Rivers to be much more polluted with highly toxic substances than previously thought — and they can’t even pinpoint where the poisons originated. One thing is certain, however, and it’s that those substances, which include PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), deadly dioxins, and furans are very bad for humans and fish. How bad? A fish consumption advisory in 2020 recommends that people avoid eating any fish from the Clark Fork from its confluence with the Bitterroot all the way to its confluence with the Flathead River — 148 miles of Montana’s largest river with all the fish of every species too toxic to eat. The pollutants the agency found are most commonly associated with industrial activities whose pollution is supposedly “regulated” by the Department of Environmental Quality — which given the increasing number of serious pollution issues in the state should probably be renamed since the one thing it’s not ensuring is “environmental quality.”
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
From Malcolm X’s Speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization 0f Afro-American Unity .,. “The community must reinforce its moral responsibility to rid itself of the effects of years of exploitation, neglect, and apathy, and wage an unrelenting struggle against police brutality.” Yes. There are some good policemen and some bad policemen. Usually, we get the bad ones. With all the police in Harlem, there is too much crime, too much drug addiction, too much alcoholism, too much prostitution, too much gambling. So it makes us suspicious about the motives of Commissioner Murphy when he sends all these policemen up here. We begin to think that they are just his errand boys, whose job it is to pick up the graft and take it back downtown to Murphy. Anytime there’s a police commissioner who finds it necessary to increase the strength numerically of the policemen in Harlem and, at the same time, we don’t see any sign of a decrease in crime, why, I think we’re justified in suspecting his motives. He can’t be sending them up here to fight crime, because crime is on the increase. The more cops we have, the more crime we have. We begin to think that they bring some of the crime with them. So, our purpose is to organize the community so that we ourselves, since the police can’t eliminate the drug traffic, we have to eliminate it. Since the police can’t eliminate organized gambling, we have to eliminate it. Since the police can’t eliminate organized prostitution and all of these evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our community, it is up to you and me to eliminate these evils ourselves. But in many instances, when you unite in this country or in this city to fight organized crime, you’ll find yourselves fighting the police department itself because they are involved in the organized crime. Wherever you have organized crime, that type of crime cannot exist other than with the consent of the police, the knowledge of the police and the cooperation of the police.
Labor:
Economy:
The Curious Money Trail Behind the Supreme Court/Clarence Thomas Decision to Rescue a Federal Agency that Wall Street Hates Last Thursday, in a stunning 7-2 win for the little guys and gals in America, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau et al v Community Financial Services Association of America, Ltd., et al. Making the decision all the more stunning, it was written by Clarence Thomas, the sitting justice who has been under withering attack in the press for selling out to special interests. (There is speculation that the Thomas name is on the decision to quiet the media uproar against him.) The two dissenting votes came from Justices Samuel Alito (target of a ProPublica investigation in 2023) and Neil Gorsuch, around whom conflicts of interest controversy is also swirling.
World:
US-Backed Philippine Government Committed War Crimes, People’s Tribunal Finds The Philippine government carried out atrocities against Filipinos with direction, arms and training from the US. Gaza is not the only place where Joe Biden’s government is aiding and abetting war crimes. Following a hearing on May 17-18, the International People’s Tribunal on War Crimes in the Philippines found Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr., former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, U.S. President Joe Biden, and the U.S. government guilty of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law against the Filipino people. The jurors for the tribunal included: Lennox Hinds, Emeritus Professor of Law at Rutgers University and former legal counsel for the African National Congress; Suzanne Adely, President of the National Lawyers Guild (U.S.); Severine De Laveleye, member of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium; Julen Arzuaga Gumuzio, member of the Basque Parliament; and Archbishop Joris Vercammen, former member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches.
Education, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare